Lady Be Bad Read online

  Dedication

  For Scott and Rhys. I love you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 1

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 2

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 3

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 4

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 5

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 6

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 7

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 8

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 9

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 10

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 11

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 12

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 13

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 14

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 15

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 16

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 17

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 18

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 19

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 20

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 21

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 22

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 23

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad

  Chapter 24

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from Lady Be Reckless Lady Olivia’s Particular Guide to Decorum

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  By Megan Frampton

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Lady Eleanor’s Good List for Being Bad:

  Be alone in a room when not sleeping.

  Chapter 1

  “Not there, my lady,” the bookseller said, unhelpfully. Because obviously what Eleanor was looking for wasn’t there since she didn’t have it in her immaculately gloved hand.

  She turned to regard him, raising her nose and her eyebrow simultaneously. It was a talent she’d learned from her father, the Duke of Marymount, who had taught her little else. Not that she needed to know much from a gentleman such as her father. All that was required of the duke’s eldest daughter was to behave properly, marry well, and then give birth to more little children whose only talents might also be in the raising of facial attributes. They take after their mother, her husband might say, fondly.

  At the moment, her imagined husband looked like Lord Carson, eldest son and heir to the Marquis of Wheatley. At least according to her parents.

  It wasn’t a future Lady Eleanor Howlett was necessarily looking forward to, but then again, it was what was expected of her. What was, since the unfortunate elopement of her younger sister Della (with the dancing instructor hired to teach the Howlett girls), required of her so her remaining three sisters could escape the scandalous stigma Della had brought on the family.

  She just wished she had more time before having to go ahead with repairing the family’s reputation on the basis of two words—I will—spoken to a gentleman she hadn’t chosen for herself. Just time to do some things that were not entirely expected. She’d even begun making a list—though the things she wished to do were hardly shocking, it was unlikely she would be able to do any of them. A sad statement on her life, if she were being honest with herself.

  But none of these thoughts had anything to do with the book she did want. As opposed to the husband she did not.

  “Where is it, then?” she asked. Her maid, Cotswold, glanced in her direction, clearly keen to raise a ruckus should the bookseller not oblige her mistress. Cotswold didn’t share her interest in ancient mythology, but Cotswold was always determined that her lady get whatever it was she wanted.

  Unfortunately her maid did not have a say in what husband she got. Or the things she would never get to do.

  The man pointed past her shoulder. “Over in that second room. It’s where I keep the rarer books, you see.”

  “No, I do not see,” Eleanor murmured, making her way through the narrow aisles toward where the man had pointed. She did not see because her mother would not allow her to wear her spectacles in public, and this bookshop—even though it was not a place anyone of her acquaintance would patronize—was a public place.

  “My lady?” Cotswold said in a clearly questioning tone.

  “Just stay there. I will be out in a moment,” Eleanor replied in a terse tone. A young lady was never allowed to be alone except when sleeping, and Eleanor seldom got to truly relish those times. Being asleep and all. It was on her list, in fact.

  But now, for just a few moments, she was alone. Granted, she was in a dusty bookshop heading toward what was likely an even-dustier room, but she was almost technically alone.

  Until she wasn’t.

  The room she was heading for was even darker than the rest of the shop, and her gaze was transfixed by the shelves crammed with books, the titles just blurry enough for her not to be able to make out.

  She reached into her reticule and withdrew her spectacles when she felt something smash into her side, making her fall against one of the bookshelves, which began to teeter alarmingly.

  She yelped and thrust her hand out, the one holding the spectacles, and then began to fall, feeling as though her movements were arrested in time, each moment—I can’t right myself, I’m halfway down, I hope the floor isn’t too hard, I hope my spectacles don’t crack—seeming as though it lasted an eternity until she came to rest. Not on a hard floor as she’d anticipated, but on a human body, one with an arm that had reached around her waist to do . . . something. Steady her fall? Make her crash harder? She had no idea.

  “What—what?” she sputtered, trying to wriggle off the person, torn between wanting to yell for making her fall or be grateful for making sure she hadn’t fallen on the hard ground. Though the body she was on was certainly firm enough.

  “Get off me, woman,” a voice growled. A man’s voice. Definitely a man. A rude man, for that matter. No “Are you all right? Here, let me help you rise.” Just a curt command spoken in a low male voice.

  Why did it have to be a man? Eleanor thought to herself.

  She did manage to get onto her hands and knees, her face low to the ground, low enough that, even without her spectacles, which she was still clutching in her hand, she could see the picture engraved on the book that the man had presumably dropped when he’d also felled her.

  And then she forgot about everything, about falling, about the man, about the book she had come in the room for in the first place—everything but the picture she was close enough to see, practically brushing her nose against the paper. It was of a man and a woman doing something that Eleanor knew about only vaguely, but was now emblazoned forever in her memory.

  “See something of interest?” the man said, his tone much less abrupt than before. Eleanor was vaguely aware of him moving beside her, a long, elegant finger pointing to one of the places where the man and the woman were joined. “I have to admire the man’s strength, to hold his lady up like
that,” he continued, his finger sliding down the page in excruciating slowness.

  Eleanor swallowed. She didn’t dare look over at him, for fear he would see everything she was feeling reflected on her face. She wasn’t certain she could identify everything she was feeling herself, but she knew that young, unmarried ladies did not usually feel this way. Especially not the eldest daughter of the Duke of Marymount, who was only supposed to be making a respectable, non-eyebrow-raising match. She couldn’t imagine an eyebrow would remain static if anyone were to see her. Him. Them.

  “It’s Hercules,” she said, pointing underneath the picture to where the words were written. There were other words too, in Italian, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to read them. “Hercules and Dejanire. He’s Hercules—of course he can hold her up.” Hold her up while also connecting with her in a very carnal way, Eleanor couldn’t help but notice. And wonder what those other words might possibly say, given what was happening above.

  “Dejanire,” he said slowly, stumbling over the name. “I know who Hercules is, but I don’t know who she is.” A pause, then a chuckle. “Then again, it looks as though he does, and that’s all that is important.”

  Eleanor cleared her throat. “She is Hercules’s wife, only she accidentally kills him even though she was only trying to help.”

  “This was them in happier times, then,” he said in a wry tone of voice.

  She dared to glance over at him. Curious to see this man upon whom she’d fallen and was now, inexplicably, exchanging comments over a particularly salacious picture. And then immediately regretted that decision. He was close, so close she could see him clearly, and what she saw was just—well, overwhelming would be one word. Another word would be gorgeous. Overwhelmingly gorgeous would be how she could best sum him up.

  He sprawled on the floor beside her, leaning casually on one elbow, a lock of long, tawny-gold hair falling forward onto the clean, strong lines of his face. He traced the lines of the engraving with his other hand. I should get up, Eleanor thought, not moving.

  “You know a lot about these two. Though probably not as much about what they’re doing, judging by the color of your face,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She felt herself blush even harder at his words. At the knowing expression on his face. At the knowledge he’d just pronounced she did not have. But that he, presumably, did. How did he do that? Look so casually at home, so assuredly confident even when sprawled out on the floor of a dusty bookshop?

  “How did she kill him?” he continued. He didn’t make a move to get up, and neither did she. She knew she should, likely Cotswold was about to burst in and start exclaiming, but she found she couldn’t move. Like moments before when she’d fallen, it felt as though this movement was encased in honey, a sweet, languorous feeling imbuing her whole self. Her whole self that could not move.

  “It’s complicated,” she said, giving in to this moment, whatever this moment was. She tilted her head back and looked at him straight on. Yes, definitely overwhelmingly gorgeous. It was too dark to discern what color his eyes were, but she’d have to imagine they were some sort of beguiling color. If colors beguiled.

  She could say with certainty that they did. If they belonged to him.

  “I believe Hercules was supposed to marry someone who was in love with someone else, and his wife tried to win him back, only he wasn’t in love with her, so she decided to make the best of it and gave the new wife something to ensure constancy, only it had poison on it and he died.” And that was why she was not trusted with explaining anything. She just made it sound like a muddle.

  He shrugged. “Remind me never to get married.”

  Married. What was she still doing on the floor?

  She did scramble up then, grasping his shoulder without realizing she had to help her upright. He made a noise of protest, but then leaned back, long, long legs—how tall was he, anyway?—stretched out on the floor in front of him.

  “I must go,” she said in a hurried voice, pushing her hair away from her face, tucking her spectacles back in her bag, then rubbing her hands together to rid her palms of the dust. Or perhaps wipe off how it felt to touch the paper, put her finger on that picture, that scene that was so—well, so whatever it was, just that it wasn’t proper for her to have seen, nor was he proper for her to have seen, what with her feeling breathless and tight in her clothing and awkward and melting and hot all at the same time.

  Because of him. Or the fall, more likely, she assured herself. Even though he had braced the impact with his body so she’d felt not much more than a sharp bounce. It had to be the fall. It couldn’t be him and that picture and the way he’d asked if she’d seen anything of interest, as though she were selecting a piece of cake or something.

  It couldn’t. Even though it absolutely was.

  “But we were just getting acquainted,” he said, his tone faintly amused.

  “Yours is not an acquaintance I wish to pursue,” Eleanor replied. She felt uncomfortable with how cold she sounded. At least until he laughed. Then she just felt embarrassed.

  “Unfortunate. It seems we share a passion”—and he paused, letting the impact of the word roll through her—“for Greek mythology.”

  That couldn’t be why he was looking at that picture. Nor could she accuse him of being interested for any other reason, because she had already done what no young lady in her position—whether literally on the floor or as a duke’s daughter—would do, given that she hadn’t immediately raised herself up and given him a haughty set-down.

  Instead she’d stayed because she was intrigued.

  By him, by the picture, by being alone in a dark room with a man who was overwhelmingly gorgeous.

  And she definitely hadn’t even thought to put that on the list.

  She was Lady Eleanor Howlett, she wasn’t supposed to be intrigued by anything. She was supposed to be proper, correct, respectable, and every other word that meant she was supposed to do precisely what she was supposed to and rescue her family’s reputation at the same time.

  Not be intrigued by anything. Or anyone.

  Lord Alexander Raybourn stayed on the floor for a few moments after the lady had left, his gaze idling on the spot where she’d been. Feeling the impact of her body on his as they fell, hearing the curiosity in her voice, even though he doubted she’d recognize it herself. But she’d been interested, despite what she’d presumably been told her entire life. He could recognize she was a lady, not just because of her appearance, which was exceedingly ladylike, but also because she spoke in the cultured tones of only the best females in society. He wished it weren’t his society, but it was.

  He’d come to frequent Avery and Sons Booksellers because he’d discovered the shop sold items of a less respectable nature than most booksellers. The collection in the back room had books from a variety of traditions, from texts created by frustrated monks in ancient times to more recent books detailing just what types of positions people could get themselves into in pursuit of the height of ecstasy. He and the owner of the shop (not named Avery, oddly enough, but Woodson) had come to an agreement where Mr. Woodson would set aside any books that might hold particular interest to Alex.

  Alex glanced down at the picture that had made the lady’s breath quicken and her words emerge equally breathlessly. It really was quite impressive how Hercules was holding his lady—his wife, she’d said—up pinioned on his cock, his arms her only support.

  His mind immediately went, of course, to what it would look like if he were to try such a thing. With the lady who’d just been here. Unlike Hercules’s wife, the lady was wearing a voluminous amount of clothing, so the fabric would drape over the inappropriate parts. If anyone were to chance across them, it might appear that they were just standing together. Awfully close, to be sure, but just standing.

  Of course when they started moving—or rather, when he started moving, thrusting into her—well, then everybody would be able to tell.

  She had landed for
cefully on him, but most of her parts were soft. Warm. And very womanly.

  It was unfortunate she was a lady; if she had been a woman not of his class, perhaps he could have pursued the conversation into even more intriguing depths. Inquired as to her desire to attempt Hercules’s pose.

  He shook his head regretfully, knowing he was already late to meet his brother and the rest of his far-too-respectable family. The family that barely tolerated him, but had to because if they didn’t, the scandal would be far worse than anything he had done. And he had done some scandalous things.

  Some of which were pictured in this book.

  He closed the book with a smile. He’d buy it to join the rest of his collection, a hidden part of him and his interests that made him chuckle whenever he thought of it—the Raybourn family unknowingly having a collection of erotic literature at their town house. His tiny rebellion against all that he was and was supposed to be.

  He strode out to the main area of the bookshop, noting that the lady had already made her escape. No doubt too horrified by what she’d seen to linger where she might encounter him again.

  “Wrap this up, please, and send it to my address.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew some coins, more than enough to pay for the book. He tossed them onto the counter, and they were swiftly picked up by Mr. Woodson. “No need to write up a bill of sale, and please ensure the book is properly covered up. I don’t want to shock anyone with its contents,” he said with a wink, which Mr. Woodson returned.

  At least, not shock anyone more than he just had. What the lady had seen was just one of the pictures in the book, but it would doubtless be more than enough to keep her awake at night, either in prurient interest or shock. Or both, Alex didn’t doubt.

  “This is quite rare, my lord,” Mr. Woodson said in a low voice, touching the book’s cover. “I have had many gentlemen inquire about a possible translation for it. I don’t suppose you?”—and he glanced up at Alex, a questioning look in his eyes.

  “I can’t speak Italian,” Alex said.